HVACBossPro Blog — Maintenance Agreements

Moving HVAC Maintenance Agreements Off Spreadsheets and Paper

Most HVAC shops already have members before they ever use agreement software. They live in a spreadsheet, a stack of signed paper agreements, a notebook in the owner's truck, or all three. Moving them over feels like a big job, but most of it can be done in an afternoon with a CSV import and a little cleanup.

Where Your Members Live Today

Members will use the customer app described in The Customer App for HVAC Maintenance Plan Members once they are in the system. Getting them there is the first step.

Before importing anything, gather everything into one place. Pull the spreadsheet, go through the paper agreements, and check the owner's notebook. You want one list of every current member with, at minimum:

• Name, phone and email.
• Service address.
• Plan type: two visits a year, yearly, or commercial quarterly.
• Date of their last completed visit, if you know it.

Anything beyond that is a bonus: equipment details, filter size, access notes, plan price.

Clean the List First

Spreadsheets kept for years collect mess. Before importing:

• Remove duplicates. The same member entered twice will show up twice on the Waiting List.
• Drop people who left. If someone cancelled two years ago, they should not come over as an active member. Keep a separate list if you want to send win-back offers later.
• Fix phone numbers. Reminders and texts only work if the number is right.
• Standardize plan names. “2x/yr,” “twice a year” and “spring/fall” should all become the same thing.

An hour of cleanup here saves weeks of confusion later.

Importing by CSV

HVACBossPro imports clients and addresses from a CSV file. Save your cleaned spreadsheet as CSV and bring it in. Imported addresses are placed on the map automatically, so every member shows up where they belong without anyone dropping pins by hand.

One client can have many addresses. If you have landlords with several rental homes, make sure your spreadsheet lists each property so they come in under the same client. Commercial clients with more than one building work the same way.

Set Plans, Tags and Last Visits

Once members are in, finish the setup on each one:

• Set the plan on each address: 180 days for spring and fall tune-ups, 365 for yearly, 90 for commercial PM.
• Tag the client Maintenance Plan, and Commercial if it applies.
• Record the last visit so the next one comes due at the right time.
• Fill in custom fields like plan type and member since, if you use them.

The last visit date matters most. Without it, the software cannot know when the next tune-up should come due. If you do not know a member's last visit, make a best guess based on the season, and let the first visit in the new system set the rhythm from there.

Equipment Comes Over Time

Do not hold up the move waiting to enter every model and serial number. Bring over what you have, then let the techs fill in the rest on the first visit. System type, brand, model, serial, tonnage, year installed, filter size and unit location all go on the address. Once entered, they show on every visit after.

Within one full season, nearly every member will have a complete equipment record, built by the techs as they go.

Cards on File

Card numbers do not come over in a spreadsheet, and they should not. For members you want on auto-charge, ask them to add their card in the customer app, or collect it at their next visit. A short text to each member explaining that you have moved to a new system and inviting them to add a card works well.

That text is also a chance to introduce the customer app and alert choices. Members who pick their alerts early get a better first visit.

Your First Season in the New System

The first time the Waiting List fills with due tune-ups after a move, there may be some surprises: members due earlier than you expected, a few addresses that need correcting, a member you forgot about. That is normal. Work through the map, fix what comes up, and by the second season the list will run on its own.

Run both the old list and the new system side by side for a few weeks if it makes you more comfortable, then retire the spreadsheet. Two lists for too long means two sources of truth, and members fall through the gap between them.

The move is a good time to avoid the common traps covered next in Mistakes HVAC Companies Make Running Maintenance Agreements. For everything the agreement tools can do, see the HVAC maintenance agreement software page.